La Chute
by annielikesgreen
Summary: Darcy wishes to confess something to Elizabeth, but love is gruesome and merciless. Modern AU.


The darkness mutters. It buzzes. It has a voice. It goes _swish!_ and _oomph!_ as tree branches slide against the windshield. The night is not really night, not at this hour. It is a blanket hour. An hour of sleeping awake.

The radio static won't let her think. She is squirming in her seat, the fabric is warm and she feels a dampness underneath her blouse.

On one side of the road the hill rises clumsily, like a hunchback, trying feebly to rise on his own two feet. A force, a hammer-like force, knocks it down, keeps it subdued.

On the other side, she sees the trees climbing down further into a fog.

He is driving correctly, precisely, swerving gently. His mind measures the distances carefully. He is fully engaged in this action and were it not for the coming and going of an ictus in his jaw, she would believe he is only thinking of this car ride.

She wonders what little else concerns him. Is it his affairs at Pemberley? He often speaks of that place, as if it were holy. She cannot picture the building without thinking first of a cathedral.

Is it the woman they left behind?

(Mrs de Bourgh was certainly furious to see her nephew drive off alone with "that Bennet girl". She could not understand why Elizabeth had to leave so urgently. She could not understand why Darcy would offer so promptly, either.)

Is it his younger sister, the one she has heard so much about? (The pianist, was it?)

Is it Charlie Bingley, his best friend, lying unconscious in a hospital bed after that unfortunate skiing accident?

She thinks it could be all three and it wouldn't matter. Darcy would still reveal nothing.

She presses her shoulders further into the seat. She feels that numbness that comes with sitting in one position for too long.

And there is this treacherous feeling in the pit of her stomach, warning her that the night will bring a turn.

She feels a flutter, a low gurgling of some tiny beasts in the air. If she raised her hand only a little, she would spark electricity.

The car meanders deeper into a forest she never truly saw during the day. Sunlight obscures as much as it reveals.

Eventually, she groans and raises herself a little, only to switch off the radio. The static won't do.

Darcy registers the movement immediately. He nods his head, as if to say, "thank God you thought of it first".

It is much better now, part of her anxiety is assuaged. Only part.

She remembers a face in the mirror, looking back at her in full desperation and she tries to check in the side-mirror if, somehow, those dark circles are still there.

She is unsuccessful, as it has grown darker.

Darcy taps a finger on the steering wheel and she knows by that small announcement that he is about to speak.

But it is a false alarm. Two full minutes pass wrapped in the velvet-silence of the car, while outside darkness buzzes, _buzz, buzz, buzz_.

Without warning, he clears his throat and slows down the car.

"Am I driving too fast?"

Elizabeth blinks.

"No, of course not. It's fine."

"I thought you were - never mind. Do you drive?"

Elizabeth feels a bad taste in her mouth. She swallows her own saliva as if she were drowning.

"I have a permit, but I don't need to drive in the city."

"Yes, too much traffic."

He starts going faster.

"I sometimes drive to my parents'. To Longbourn."

"I gathered as much," he replies politely. He is thinking of the country-side, of how much better it would be if they could stop at her parents' house and talk honestly. But he knows he cannot be part of that place.

"You're a good driver," she says to say something.

"I'm out of touch."

"No."

The "no" is so sudden and so irrevocable, he feels he must comply.

"I suppose I'm doing all right for this weather."

"I don't think it's going to rain," she offers, looking out the window. She can't see anything anymore.

"I wouldn't mind."

"Me neither."

"Do you like the rain?" he asks sheepishly.

She gives him a blank look. It is one of those stupid questions that deserve no real answer, so she remains silent.

"I hope you don't mind my aunt," he suddenly adds, hands clenched on the steering wheel.

"Why would I mind? She's just very _original_."

"That's one way of putting it." There is a shadow of something on his face but it washes away with the rest of darkness.

"I liked her assessment of me."

Darcy sounds totally surprised for the first time. One hand is released from the steering wheel.

"You - you do?"

"Well, she's right. Journalists are practically bloggers now. We don't do much to contribute to "the good of society", as she calls it. We write a lot of useless junk, but we do it more or less cleverly."

Darcy releases a breath, almost as if he were about to laugh.

"Cleverly?"

"She had a point, journalists _used_ to matter. They brought about change."

"And now?"

Elizabeth scoffs. She doesn't understand why they are discussing this now or how this conversation even began, but she smiles.

"Now, they're just _there_, swept away with the change."

"Do you think that about yourself?" he asks.

"Always."

"In any case, she doesn't mean to insult people," he states once more.

She shakes her head. "It's not insulting. Why do you think she offended me, anyways?"

"I - I'm used to her way of talking. I thought others would find it harder."

"Give me some credit," Elizabeth teases, forgetting whom she is talking to. "I come from eccentrics too."

She notices the ictus striking his jaw again and he slows down the car until it comes to a full halt, the wheels purring delicately underneath them.

Elizabeth grasps the handle of her seat. Panic is rising in waves, like the _swish!_ and _oomph!_ of the tree branches.

"Why -"

He turns towards her and lets his hands fall in his lap.

"I need to tell you something privately, Elizabeth, because I don't think we'll be alone again very soon."

"Don't -"

"I know it's a bit sudden, but these past few days-"

Before he can utter another word, she forces the car door open and jumps out skittishly, like a bird flying out of its cage.

She half-runs, half-sprints away from the car, down the road, her elbows rubbing against the blanket of darkness.

Darcy sits still for a moment, too shocked to react.

But he sees a vanishing white figure and he leaps out of the car after her.

"Elizabeth!"

"Elizabeth!" He cries dispassionately.

"Where are you going?!"

"Miss Bennet!"

She is now running, no longer mimicking her actions.

She feels, she has always felt, what he was going to tell her and she can't stand it. She can't hear it now, in this early period of her life, when she has barely grown into her adulthood, when she has only just left home. She is only twenty-four. These things - they cannot happen now.

The reality is, he was going to make a declaration that would tie them both down to some absurd emotional compromise. He was going to say _something_ and she wasn't ready for it.

She wants to stop the tears from coming, but two or three slip from under her eyelashes and she chokes on an ugly sob.

_Why_ is it so hard to be loved?

Why has no one taught her to be loved?

Why has no one told her these things are gruesome, merciless?

There is nothing beautiful about love. It is clumsy and it never rises to the occasion, much like the hunchbacked hill, hammered down by an unknown force.

She staggers and she leans against the trees, climbing down into the fog.

The darkness mutters. It buzzes.


End file.
